YouTube Stars Say They Were Removed From Delta Flight for Speaking Arabic

Adam Saleh in Manhattan last year. Dave Sanders photo

London, 22 Rabiul Awwal 1438/22 December 2016 (MINA) – Two American YouTube stars who were returning home to New York after a world tour said they were removed from a Delta Air Lines flight in London on Wednesday after other passengers expressed discomfort with their presence on the plane.

Adam Saleh, 23, a filmmaker from Manhattan, and his friend Slim Albaher, 22, from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said they had been asked by the captain to leave their flight at Heathrow Airport after Mr. Saleh spoke in Arabic to his mother by phone, and he and Mr. Albaher followed up by speaking to each other in Arabic, causing alarm among British passengers on the flight, nytimes.com reported.

The news was met on social media with anger at the airline industry, but also skepticism, though passengers who were on the plane when it landed in New York corroborated the men’s story.

Mr. Saleh, who has more than two million subscribers on YouTube, has a history of perpetuating video hoaxes and pranks, some of them aimed at exposing stereotypes about Muslims. In his latest YouTube video, posted this month, he pretended to smuggle himself onto a plane in a suitcase.

In a phone interview Wednesday from Heathrow before he and Mr. Albaher boarded a later flight, Mr. Saleh said this was not a stunt. “The only thing I can say is, I would never film a phone video,” he said.

“That’s when it’s really serious, and I must film.” His video camera was in his luggage.

Delta said in a statement on Wednesday evening that, based on information collected so far, the two customers removed from the flight “sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior, including shouting.”

“What is paramount to Delta is the safety and comfort of our passengers and employees,” the airline said. “It is clear these individuals sought to violate that priority.”

Earlier in the day, Delta said that it was taking allegations of discrimination “very seriously.”

Camilla Goodman, a spokeswoman for London’s Metropolitan Police, confirmed that two passengers had been removed from the flight and that they “didn’t do anything lawfully wrong.” They were not arrested, she said. Mr. Saleh and Mr. Albaher later boarded a Virgin flight to New York

 

 

Feeling like terrorists

In Periscope videos and the phone interview, Mr. Saleh and Mr. Albaher gave their version of events.

Mr. Saleh said he had just spoken to his mother on the phone, in Arabic, to tell her when his flight would land. After the call, he and Mr. Albaher continued to speak briefly in Arabic until they were interrupted by a woman in front of them, who asked them to speak English because they were making her uncomfortable.

They did not respond aggressively, Mr. Saleh said, but told her that they were speaking Arabic and asked whether she had ever heard another language. Then, Mr. Saleh said, a man with a British accent who appeared to be traveling with the woman swore at them and said they should be “chucked” off the plane.

“At this point, me and Slim looked at each other,” Mr. Saleh said in the interview. “We didn’t know what to do. We felt like we were terrorists.”

The situation escalated, Mr. Saleh said, and other passengers joined in asking that Mr. Saleh and Mr. Albaher be kicked off the plane. Some of them mentioned Monday’s terrorist attack in Berlin, he said

After the disturbance continued for what Mr. Saleh said was about seven minutes, the captain was summoned, and he asked that the two men leave the plane with their baggage.

At that point, Mr. Saleh started filming with his phone. He later shared the video, and others from the airport, on Twitter, where he has more than 250,000 followers.

Chris Ashford, 47, who was aboard the plane after a layover in London, said he believed that the woman had “overreacted.”

“She heard somebody speaking in Arabic and assumed the worst,” he said.

He added that while he thought Delta had acted in the interest of some of its passengers, “I do think it was heavy-handed, kicking the guy off the plane and then removing his bags.”

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, 51, was also on the plane. Although she said she could not judge the airline’s actions because she had only witnessed some of the disruption, Ms. Thompson did say that both parties should have been removed.

“If you’re going to investigate, how are you going to investigate one side of an altercation?” she asked.

In the video, Mr. Saleh is escorted from the plane as he points out passengers who were heckling him, yelling goodbye and waving at the camera.

“You guys are racist,” Mr. Saleh shouts in the video as he describes the confrontation. “Six white people against us bearded men.”  (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)